Wedding Survivor by Julia London Read Free Book Online Page B

much?"
    "Yes," she said, without missing a beat. "Do you
ever
talk?"
    Eli grinned. "When I can get a word in edgewise, sometimes I'll open up."
    A smile curved the corner of her lips. "I have another one," she said, turning the page.
    Eli stopped her again by putting a hand on her open portfolio. "Why don't you save it for Olivia? She'll be thrilled to have pictures to look at."
    Her bright eyes narrowed a teeny bit. "Okay!" she chirped and shut the portfolio firmly on his hand. "When do I get to meet her?"
    He smiled and gingerly withdrew his hand from the portfolio. Marnie pushed her hair out of her eyes, leaned back, crossed her legs, folded her arms like him, and watched him, too. But with a glint in her eyes. If he wasn't mistaken, it was a smarty-pants glint.
    He made a mental note of that as he withdrew a small notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. "After we go over some ground rules."
    "Great," she said, and began to swing one foot. But she made no move to get a paper or pen.
    "You might want to write some stuff down."
    She sighed, leaned over, and fished around her bag for a neon-orange pen and lime-green spiral notebook, straightened up, flipped it open, pressed her neon-orange pen tip to the paper, and gave him a derisive little smile.
    "Rule number one—and this one is the most important rule you'll hear," he said with a slow smile. "It's so important that if you don't follow it, I will can you so fast that you will never even feel my boot in your butt. And here it is:
No one knows
. No one. Not your best friends, not your mother, not your priest.
No one
. T.A. is successful because we guarantee privacy for our clients and that means never mentioning their names, or where you are going, or even that you are working on a wedding. You cannot even begin to imagine how resourceful and sly the press and paparazzi are in this town. You have to keep this under wraps until it's all said and done. Any questions?"
    "Nope," she said, and instantly dropped her gaze, wrote something down.
    He leaned over, saw the word
bossy
. Oh, great—he instantly suspected that her mouth had already opened and gums had flapped. He tapped her on the hand with his pen. She just inched her hand away from his pen. Eli frowned. "What's the matter, Marnie? Do we have a problem? Have you
told
someone?"
    She looked off to one side and muttered, "Mom."
    "Oh God—"
    "But she won't tell a soul!" she insisted with big maple doe eyes. "I swore her to secrecy, and I swear, my mom won't tell a
soul
."
    "Who else?" he demanded.
    "No one, I swear it!"
    "No one? You're sure about that? You haven't been sitting around with your pals doing each other's nails and gabbing about your great new job? About meeting a couple of major Hollywood movie stars?"
    Her expression instantly went from pleading to miffed. "Sitting around doing my
nails
?" she echoed. "Are you serious? Is that what you think I do? You think just because I am a wedding planner that I don't have anything better to do with my free time than my
nails
?"
    "Have you been talking, Marnie? Because in case you haven't noticed, you seem excited about this gig and you have a tendency to
talk
."
    "At least I
do
talk," she shot back. "At least I don't sit there glaring at the world around me like I'm mad all the time like
some
people. And you're right, I am very excited about this job. But I am a professional! And for your information, Mr. Personality, I have a very full and busy life! I do not sit around and do my
nails
and gossip with my
pals
."
    "Okay, Chatty Cathy," he said, holding up a hand. "That's all I'm asking."
    She petulantly flipped her hair over her shoulder.
    "So I'm sorry about the nail thing. I didn't mean to be offensive," he grudgingly added. "I just want to make sure you haven't been gabbing with your friends about this."
    "I don't
gab
with friends. If you must know, I had to move home with my parents because of some…
issues
… and my friends are four hours away.